


Lay Your Troubles At My Door

by damalur, Odyle



Category: Eastern Promises (2007)
Genre: Community: schmoop_bingo, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-02
Updated: 2011-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-18 21:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damalur/pseuds/damalur, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odyle/pseuds/Odyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are questions she does not ask as she ushers him inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lay Your Troubles At My Door

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet was written for the 2010 round of schmoop_bingo prompt "cuddling – hypothermia".

When the doorbell chimes, Anna is the only one awake in the house. Her mother and the baby are both long asleep, accustomed to going to bed before Anna gets home from her late shift at the hospital, and Anna is herself cradling a mug of tea and hoping her fingers will forget the cold before she has to attempt any task so dexterous and complicated as handling a toothbrush. The doorbell startles her in the dark house, timed just after a clap of thunder, and the noise makes her start and stumble back and nearly step on the cat. She goes to the door and works the lock clumsily, hoping the noise didn't startle Christine awake—

And he is there on her doorstep, in the rags of a bespoke suit, so cold and drenched his lips match the limpid uncolor of his eyes.

There are questions she does not ask as she ushers him inside. She does not ask.

He stands in the small entrance hall, seemingly frozen in place. Anna has to walk through the puddle of water seeping onto the floor from the remains of his suit and his skin. It soaks through the socks she is wearing when she crosses the puddle to lock the door after him. She undresses him there in the hall. The wet clothes are doing nothing but keeping him cold, so she strips him of his suit, piece by piece, letting each piece drop to the tile as it came free of his body. Nikolai makes no protest as she does, but makes no move to help her in the task.

When he is bare, she leads him to the living room, leaving a line of footprints on the hardwood floor.

Her mother hoards blankets the way Anna herself hoards stories, and Anna pries open the battered oak trunk under the window and draws out a quilt, wraps the unprotesting Nikolai with it and guides him to the sofa. She piles more blankets on, the old sheets from her little student apartment, a hand-knit coverlet that holds the accumulated must of no less than three countries. One of Christine's baby blankets goes on top, ducks dancing on a pale pink field. There is something portentous about trusting him with her daughter's bedding.

She takes a towel from the linen closet and drapes it over his head. Gently, she rubs his hair dry just as she does for Christine. When she draws the towel back to reveal his face again, his eyes are closed. He looks so different this way, almost human with his hair damp and his lips still blueish in hue beneath a mound of blankets.

"Nikolai," Anna says quietly, "you must stay awake. If you fall asleep I'm taking you to hospital."

She cups one cheek with her hand, letting whatever heat the teacup invested in her drain into his body. The skin is still smooth, not even the slightest hint of stubble. Whatever trouble he has found himself in is recent.

His mouth twitches and then goes smooth again, expressionless, almost placid—and he twitches the top quilt aside in clear invitation. Anna hesitates; how can she not? What does she actually know of him, this man who would be king? There are stains on his hands that have nothing to do with tattoo ink, but every instinct in her strains toward him, tells her he is trustworthy.

So she slides under the blanket, aware that at the very least her body heat can't hurt his condition, although she is careful to not quite let their sides brush.

When she has settled, he reaches over her body and drapes the quilt over her. Nikolai is not so conscientious about contact as she is and lets his arm brush against hers beneath the quilt. His skin is warmer now, but still cold against hers, even through the robe and long sleeved shirt she donned for bed. He looks at her when she shivers and pulls away.

Somehow worse, he accepts that she pulls away, as if he anticipated her reaction and still could not resist the light contact. Anna clears her throats and spreads her fingers against her thighs. If she would speak, now is the opportune moment.

"Anna Ivanova," he says before she has a chance to utter a word. "You are well."

"Better than you."

This coaxes a smile out of him. It is charming and allows Anna to forget, if just for a moment, who this is beside her.

"You judge by just one night."

"One night with hypothermia," she retorts, "and the last I saw you, you were signing yourself out of hospital."

He has the temerity to smile again at her, little-boy grin, makes her want to smack the back of his head and draw him all the closer. She does not think he smiles often, and less often still _this smile_. "It is a hard world outside your door," he says. "Maybe not so hard inside it, though."

She almost says something about the travails of her life, but thinks better of it. Nikolai lives a life of vice that she would do better not to think about. Of what concern are the trivialities of her life when compared to his? Hers is a soft life, one he helped to deliver her to. She is content and grateful, but cannot see past the man she knows outside this home.

"Why did you appear on my doorstep tonight, Nikolai?"

Uncharacteristically, he shrugs, looks away. She turns to face him more fully, letting the crook of her knee fall against his bare thigh—and is abruptly interrupted when the cat leaps on the back of the sofa, first sniffing delicately at Nikolai's ear and then, once he meets her approval, twining around his neck, looking to be stroked.

"You don't have anywhere else to go," she divines.

He shrugs again, that heavy-lidded lift of insouciance she remembers from the days after Tatiana's death. "I have...outlived my usefulness," he says, and his thick accent puts the emphasis on _outlived_.

She watches him reach up and gently scratch the cat under its chin, causing it to purr so loudly it distracts her from her thoughts. The cat climbs down his body to settle in his lap. He reaches from beneath the quilts and blankets to pet the creature, taking care not to expose too much of himself and lose the heat again. "Is it safe for you to be here?"

Anna does not know what she will do. Yes or no does not matter, she can't think of a plan to deal with either case, not at this time of the night. Surely he wouldn't have come if he were putting her or Christine in any danger, but a desperate man could be driven to many things.

He does not insult her by shrugging a third time. "Safe as it is for me to be anywhere," he answers; then, his lips thin. "It is only matter of time before Kirill decides he is not so benevolent to me. He will come for you then, too, if he stops to think for a moment before he acts."

"What do we—oh god." Her hand flies to her mouth, and he reaches up, closes his fingers around hers.

"What do you feel about Canada?"


End file.
